If I understand correctly, Mr. Buffet believes that Bitcoin is super tasty but very poisonous, like a Big Mac times itself, and Charlie Munger is trying to say that the Bitcoin market is pure FOMO, or the Fear of Missing Out. Therefore, Bitcoin is doomed.

Putting these ideas to the test

I hope you are a data driven person like me. I believe there's no better way to have a clear understanding when people's tempers are raging than to just look at data and slowly and carefully think about what makes sense.

Let's start with Jamie Dimon's argument that all governments in the world will ban Bitcoin.

How does this argument stack up? Let's look at what's going on in the three largest economies in the world.All governments to ban Bitcoin?

While China has placed a temporary ban on Bitcoin exchanges and ICOs, China's state TV recently said that blockchain could be ten times more valuable that the internet. While it may seem that China is falling in line with Mr. Dimon's prediction, it's worth noting that when the latest ban went into effect, business didn't stop, it just moved to places with a more friendly regulatory environment, such as Switzerland, Japan and South Korea.

In Japan, eleven Bitcoin exchanges are recognized by the FSA, and Bitcoin is legal tender. This would seem to be at odds with the idea that every government in the world is going to ban Bitcoin.

When governments move too quickly to ban new technology, the country they represent ends up getting left behind. Coinbase for example, has 20 million users and has traded over 150 billion dollars of cryptocurrencies to date. This kind of economic activity is creating jobs and driving innovation.

Will governments regulate cryptocurrency exchanges? Of course, and they already are.

Will every government in the world ban cryptocurrency outright? I'm not convinced it's going to happen, especially with what we're seeing in the US and Japan so far.

I think people forget that Bitcoin is not some magical beast that lives in isolation. It's a network with many stakeholders and it represents something different to each group. Bitcoin has created an ecosystem that includes Bitcoin Miners, Software Engineers, Exchanges, Cloud infrastructure like Blockchian as a Service, Merchants, Users, and of course, the speculators and the scammers.

Let's look at some data.

FOMO or subject of scholarly research?

If Bitcoin was just FOMO, then surely academic interest in the subject would be small, and certainly not growing over time. What's the big deal after all?

If Bitcoin was just speculation, surely the countries with the highest search volume for the term "Bitcoin" would be wealthy countries where people are throwing money around, rather than in troubled places where a censorship resistant currency might be of use. As you can see, with the exception Finland in 2012, the interest is overwhelming coming from troubled geographic areas.

To say that Bitcoin has no value is to say that academics (students and professors), governments, venture capitalists, software engineers, hiring managers, and people living in the most troubled areas of the world are completely off their rockers because they dare to challenge our assumptions about what value is and the ways in which it might be transferred.

Is Bitcoin a shared delusion? Sure, but so are lines of latitude and longitude, global time standards, our existing money system, right and wrong, cultural norms, beauty, art and hope.

The more important question is, does this shared delusion give us something back? Do we gain something by believing in it?

For me, the answer is clear. I think Bitcoin is one of the most powerful forces for the rights of the individual. I think Bitcoin can at once weaken the oppressors of the downtrodden and create opportunity for the bold.

Conclusion

It may challenge our assumptions that money might come from the crowd, rather than from on high.

But, maybe this time it's up to us to save ourselves? Ask yourself what it might mean to live in a world where currencies exist that reach the entire globe and yet don't require the backing of a military. I don't know for sure what it means, but I've decided to follow this path and find out for myself, rather than relying on the old guard to hand down truth to me.

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu

We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.